


beneath the surface (i'll find you)

by gammarose



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, Happy Ending, I promise lol, Two Shot, aka me and like two other people lol, fluff and angst but mostly fluff, i literally had this sitting on my drive for like 4 month so here u all go lol, mermaid au, some blood, supernatural stuff, the mermaid au we've all been waiting for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-21 17:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11948982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gammarose/pseuds/gammarose
Summary: When she was a young, Kim used to read stories of mermaids and the lovers they rescued from the deep sea. She never expected to find herself living out those stories years later, surrounded by newly transformed beings just like her.Trini never imagined herself falling from a cliff, only to be caught in the arms of a mermaid with shining pink scales.Neither expected to fall in love with each otherA Trimberly Mermaid au for the soul





	beneath the surface (i'll find you)

Kimberly Hart dies on a Sunday in August.

That is all she can remember at first.

In the coming weeks she’ll recall more details of how it happened. Fuzzy pictures played back in her head like old home videos of a time so close and yet so distant. The life she decided to forgo in exchange for freedom.

For iridescent pink scales and a powerful tail able to propel her through harsh currents and breaking waves.

The water around her comforts her, soothing her newly transformed muscles and gills in a way only others like her can know.

What was a dark murky lake is now clear as her eyes settle into their new environment. She’ll come to call this lake her home. The home of others like her. Beings that bridge the gap between land and sea; creatures that she once thought of as myth, but now are her reality.

As Kim swims towards the rocky outcrop, eyeing the girl in yellow, she can’t help but feel a tug in her heart, calling her towards the being on the surface above.

And before she knows it, she’s kicking her tail, diving after the stranger as she falls into the water below.

 ...

If you were to ask Kim, everything in her life can be summed up into a Before and an After.

Before, she was human. The just your average small town girl focused on remaining on the top of the social ladder and cheer team. She was the perfect daughter. The perfect model student.

And yet...

Sometimes Kim wonders how her life would have been had she not sent the pictures to her sort-of boyfriend in a drunken haze of jealousy and gay panic over her now ex-best friends naked body. Because why would the resident straight cheer captain and teenage golden child engage in revenge porn?

Kim wonders how her life would have been different had she not decided to dive into the lake to escape it all.

It happens on a dreary Monday morning. The sky is overcast, the fog rolling in from the bay, casting a haze of gray over the town of Angel Grove. Her parent’s voices, angry and disappointed, echo in her head from the previous night.

_Kimberly Ann Hart what the hell were you thinking?!_

_If Amanda wasn’t 18 you would have been arrested for possessing…._

_Why would you just throw your life away after all your Father and I have provided for you?!.._  

Amanda’s car wasn’t waiting for her in front of her house ready to pick Kim up for cheer practice. Kim felt her heart drop for a brief moment, but tried to shrug it off. She deserved losing both her best friend and cheer position. She cannot handle facing the sneering wipers and her ex-clique that await at school.  Who the hell would want to be around such a traitorous bitch?

And with that thought Kim decides to skip school and run towards the forest at the edge of town.

…

The lake by the quarry had always been a place to escape.  Illuminated by the faint distant glow of the town she resented, the lake remains a place of solitude. Somewhere she can escape it all. Escape the whispers in the crowded hallways. The glares of her former best-friend. Everything that had once brought her joy but now only pain.

Weeks earlier she would have driven up to the lake with Amanda and Harper, a bottle of scotch between them as they drunkenly gossiped about who made out with who at Harper’s house party. Laughing at some joke Ty made the other day. Kim rolling her eyes in affection at how dumb, yet loveable her boyfriend could be.

Stuff she took for granted. Just as her best friend trusted her before Kim crushed it into jagged edges before stabbing Amanda repeatedly with that broken trust.

But none of that matters now.

All she has to offer to the world is herself.

Kim tosses her bag to the side, shedding her clothes and leaving only a pink lace bra and panties before diving from the cliff edge into the water. The coldness immediately hits her, sending minor pins and needles through her skin. She surfaces, tossing her head back, before taking a deep breath and diving down again.

Kim let’s the cold water embrace her. She allows her body to float aimlessly just below the surface. She watches as the early morning sun casts ripples of light atop the lake.  She does this several times, and for the first time since her world came crashing down, Kim feels free.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before she hears it. She opens her eyes. A voice sings from the lake bed. Kim surfaces to breath. The voice vanished. She dives again, curiosity growing.

Something glitters amid the murky darkness at the bottom twenty feet below. She swims downward towards the green light. At the bottom of the lake bed, she see’s her. And if she could, Kim would gasp.

A mermaid with long flowing green hair and bright emerald scales was reclining against a pile of rocks, eyes closed. She reminds Kim of the goddess Venus, lounging and nude, singing a deep melody.

 _Come closer._ It sings to her

The mermaid opened her eyes, and for a moment the past had vanished. Kimberly could see her parents smiling at her proudly. Amanda had her arms around her, lips pressing soft gentle kisses against her neck. The pictures were never sent to her boyfriend. She had not thrown her life away. 

Kim reaches towards it.

The mermaid seizes her arm.

In an instant, the beautiful women vanished. Her skin molted right in front of her, sharp scales pushing outward, creating jagged green edges on previously flawless skin. White teeth decaying to be replaced by rotting incisors.

“So young and naive..” The melody transformed into piercing laughter.  Her body freezes in shock. When she gets to her senses, she’s thrashing her arms, trying to dislodged the siren’s grip.

“I could kill you right now.” Harsh laughter fills her ears as water fills her lungs. For a brief moment, the siren let’s go of her arm. Before she can swim away, the siren grabs her throat, nails digging into her skin.  “ And just take what I want.” Kim watches as the siren grabs her hair before slicing several chunks off with sharp claws. Kim struggles against the chokehold, but the siren’s grip remains firm. Her lungs burn as fresh water replaces oxygen, limbs fighting to free herself against a losing battle.  “ But what a shame it would be to waste a pretty face.”

It happens so suddenly, that for a moment Kim is unsure of what the siren means before she feels it.

Claws rake down her neck.

The pain overwhelms her, she desperately gasps for air, water filling her throat. 

Clear water turns red.

Kim screams. She screams until her breath is gone and the air in her lungs is replaced with water. Her screams come out as muffled gurgles. She struggles against the siren’s grip on her neck, thrashing her arms and legs, but it’s hold remains firm.  Minutes pass. Her thrashing stops.

Just as Kim is about to lose consciousness, the siren lets go.

Kim can feel her body drift towards the lake bed. Slowly the world turns to black as all life fades away to become something new. Her body aches until gills sprout alongside her neck and chest, filtering the water into sustenance. Kim fades in and out of consciousness as her legs break and refuse. Flesh mending over broken bones, muscles wrapping around, until suddenly she is left with a long scaled tail where her legs were before.

In the last moments of her human existence Kimberly can vaguely make out glittering green scales and harsh cold laughter echoing in her mind.

 …

"You think she’s alive, Billy?”

 The voice is agitated, shaking as Kim stirs into consciousness. A cold finger presses against her neck.

 “She still has a pulse. Gills seem to be working as intended.”

 “Jesus Rita tore into her. Miracle she survived.”

 She recognized that voice. The gentle but deep gruffness reminded her of someone from before.Her eyes flutter open to an expanse of murky blue around her. Right above her Kim can make out blurry shapes of deep red and blue. As her awareness comes back, Kimberly slowly opened her eyes to find two guys her age look down in concern. She recognizes the first one; Jason Scott, the ex-football star who disappeared a month ago. The other guy, a tall black boy she vaguely remembers from homeroom? Ben? Barry? No, Billy. Yeah Billy, that’s his name. Somewhere deep in her mind, she remembers hearing an announcement on the loudspeaker during class of a missing student.

Kim sits up immediately, brings both her hands to cradle her head as a wave of nausea overcomes her. The sudden rush of blood to her brain causes the world around her to blur.

“What….. What…”

“Hey slow down.” And Jason places a firm scaled hand (scaled hand?!) on her shoulder.

Scales. Why the hell would Jason Scott have—? Her eyes follow Jason’ hand to his body, before settling down to his torso where his legs should be. A long, crimson fish tail extends from his body. Black frills extend along the spine of the tail, leading towards a fish tail. She glances back at Billy, whose tail resembles Jason’s, albeit blue and slightly longer. They resemble overgrown, betta fish, scales deeply colored with long flowing fins sprouting from their sides.

“What– what the hell!”  Kimberly scoots back in shock, unknowingly kicking her tail, sending her back several feet. Dust scatters into the water around her, creating little muddy clouds.

Kimberly brings her hands to her face. Her smooth skin is covered with a scattering of pink scales. Thin transparent webbing connects between her fingers, now clawed.

She looks down from her hands and lets out a loud gasp. A long fish tail extends from her torso where her legs used to be. A mixture of pink and salmon colored scales covers it, ending at the tip with an elegantly flowing tail fin. Just like the boys, she finds herself spurting long flowing fins sticking out from her hipbones. Several gills run down the sides of her ribcage. Kim watches in horror as the gills flex on their own, opening and closing repeatedly to filter out water.

“What....”

His voice remains calm, steady. Jason presses a heavy hand into the flat of her shoulder. She glances down at it, heart beating faster as she takes in the sharp claws and red webbing between his fingers.  “It’s a lot to take in. You need to relax a bit.” His voice does little to sooth her panic.

Kim shakes her head, blinking. “Why do I have–”

“Scales?” Billy jumps in. He’s oddly calm. Despite the situation, despite the unnatural circumstances. For a brief moment Kim is thankful for his calming demeanour.

Her tail twitches slightly, the sudden urge to swim away overwhelming her senses. She remains rooted on the lakebed, head still dizzy trying to process all this new information.

Her mind flashes back to the night before.

Green eyes belonging to a beautiful voice––

A glimmer of emerald scales––

Then, claws raking down her body. The water turning red.

Fear courses through her. At the flash of broken memory  unfamiliar instincts kick in. Kim kicks her tail, sending her effortlessly through the water. She swims away, ignoring the voices calling out behind her.

Her head breaks through the surface as she breeches onto the lakeshore, heaving her body out of the water. Arms struggle to pull herself closer to land, dragging her body onto the rocky shore.

Inhaling deeply, Kim allows herself to rest for a moment. Her chest heaves, as newly formed gills struggle to breath. Her lungs burn, her body aches as sunlight glints off her scales.

Her vision blurs as a wet hand grabs the end of her tail, pulling her back into the water. Jason stares down at her, face slightly panicked.

“You can’t just go on land!” Somehow underneath the water she can hear Jason shouting at her, his voice a mixture of fear and concern. “You’ll dry out. You need to at least keep your gills underwater.”

She blinks, trying to process all the information. “How…” her voice trails off as she turns to look at Jason, the only familiar figure she knows well enough.

Jason sighs. Billy takes his hand gently. “Maybe it’s best for me to explain…”

 …

Kimberly died.

So did Jason and Billy.

At least, they think they died. It’s hard to gauge the truth when you’re confined to the water in an unfamiliar body you once thought only existed in myth. No one expects to be lured by a mysterious siren known as Rita, only to lose your humanity in exchange for scales.

It’s strange at first, but Kim finds herself settling into her new life underwater, with two boys she comes to call her family.

On a Saturday evening a search party arrives at the quarry. Kim watches them silently, hiding amid the reeds along the water's edge, her head ducked halfway underneath the surface. They find her bag and clothes, and Kim curses to herself for leaving such obvious evidence.

The men murmur as they shine flashlights over her stuff, abandoned at the edge where she had dived weeks before.

A flashlight shines in her direction, catching a brief glimmer of her tail as she dives down underneath. She surfaces again fifty feet away, watching as the men take the last shreds of her previous existence before she dives down back to her new life.

 …

  
On nights when she is alone, all she can do is sing. Jason and Billy would go off, hunting for food in the nearby river, leaving Kimberly to herself. Jason will later tell her how very stereotypical it is for a mermaid to sing, but Kimberly can’t help it. Of all the things that she gave up to escape, her family, her life, her voice remains.

So she sings to no one in particular but herself. She sings ballads she had made in her previous life, love songs written for imaginary partners that she know now she’ll never have. They are not meant for her.

She’ll perch herself up on a craig of boulders jutting from the lake edge. She cannot stay out of the water for long. So Kimberly keeps her tale and torso slightly submerged, enough for the water to flow through her gills. There was a sense of freedom the water afforded her that she never had in life. She feels so free, swimming in circles and loops, exploring hidden underwater caves within the quarry where no human could go. Sometimes, when she’s bored, she goes out to the edge of the lake, peering over the rocky outcrops and gazing at the criss-cross blanket of lights that is Angel Grove.

But even with this newfound freedom, Kimberly cannot help but feel trapped.

Jason and Billy make good company, and Kimberly comes to see the two guys as her new family. But there is only so much one can do amid the waters.

Hunting loses its sense of fun once it becomes a chore; another part of her daily routine. Food gradually becomes limited in the small lake they now call home. The boys sometimes go off down the river, heading towards the water surrounding the strip of land she used to call home. They go off at night, when the docks are empty and the water is clear of fishing boats.

Several weeks pass. Nothing much changes. One day, Kimberly decides to swim downstream come morning and into the bay. She hides under the dock, face barely peeking out from the water,carefully listening to the gruff voices as the fisherman go about setting their nets.

“You reckon they found the bodies yet?”

The wood planks of the dock shake with approaching footsteps. Kimberly dives down beneath the water, before surfacing again several feet away. From down below she can see as shadows move above the dock.

“So young… Not surprised she ran off. Probably from guilt, after what she did to that poor girl. More indiscernible voices before– “Third disappearance since that Jason boy.”

Kim grows still.

“Have they found the bodies?”

“No but the cops are still on the lookout…”

 …

On the third week of her new life Kim sees her.

More specifically, a girl in a yellow beanie. She stands right on the edge of a cliff above the lake, her body posed in meditation, headphones blocking out the rest of the world.

Kim watches her from behind a pile of rocks jutting along the lake. Hardly anyone ever comes to the quarry lake. It remained a well hidden spot at the edge of town.

The girl comes every few days at sunset, meditating atop the same cliffside like clockwork. Everyday Kim inches closer to her, trying to catch a better glimpse of the stranger. She misses the familiarity and closeness of another girl. Living with two teenage mermen isn’t so bad. But she can’t help but feel like a third wheel to the bond held between Jason and Billy.

Kimberly remains hidden among the reeds, carefully watching the strange girl from afar. She can’t help but notice how tiny and fragile the girl seems. Curiosity gets to her, so she swims closer, pushing the reeds gently away to catch a better look.

The girl turns around, and Kimberly can’t help but let out a small gasp. _She’s gorgeous_.

And small. Kim’s pretty sure that the girl is at least half her size. Her newly grown tail added several feet to her body.

Something stirs within her. A feeling of protectiveness towards the being above that Kimberley has never felt in her previous existence.

It all happens so suddenly.

Kim hardly registers as the cliff breaks off, and with a scream, the stranger falls 30 feet face first deep into the water below.

For a brief moment Kimberly is frozen in shock before her rational self kicks in. And before she knows it, she’s diving headfirst into the water to catch her.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I've had this on my drive for at least 3 months now lol.
> 
> I've been meaning to complete this two-shot for a while! Now that I'm done with summer college classes I'm gonna go back to writing. 
> 
> For those who are wondering when the next update of Ghosts will be coming out, it will happen soon! I need to get back to the flow of writing fic so two-shots like this are warming me up. I'm planning on at least finishing that fic by September, but realistically October since I want to get started on a multi-chap Animorphs au cause I have urgent need for that.
> 
> Thanks again for reading! And special thanks to movingforthesakeofmotion for betaing this! I lov my fic mom.


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